1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic measuring device, and more particularly, to an electronic measuring device for obtaining the actual measurement of the distance between a first point and a second point which are shown on a scaled drawing and for displaying the measurement in feet and inches.
2. Description of Related Art.
In various professions, such as engineering, construction and architecture, it is sometimes necessary to make feet and inch measurements directly from a scale drawing or blueprint. For example, a construction engineer, who is responsible for placing electrical conduits in a building, may need to know exactly how far from a particular wall a conduit should be placed. The construction engineer would refer to a scaled drawing or blueprint of the building and would try to use an engineer's scale to make these measurements. The measurements may require an excessive amount of time and may often be inaccurate, because of the engineer's scale is confusing and difficult to use.
Electronic measuring devices for making measurements that would customarily be performed manually with an engineer's ruler are known in the prior art. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,435,904, 4,282,571 are examples of two ,such prior art devices. Another U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,584 illustrates an electronic distance measuring device which has circuitry which includes an analog to digital integrated circuit.
The prior art electronic measuring devices, however, include circuitry which demands relatively large power requirements, and which displays the measurements digitally, for example, in feet and tenths of feet on a low resolution screen. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,435,904 uses a microprocessor in order to mathematically generate a displayed measurement.